Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

UPDATE 9:49pm ET: Well, isn't this interesting?! After the poll was at 75% or so "NO" all day long, throughout the entire working day when most folks are at their computers, suddenly, after hours, as of 9:49pm ET, there's been a sudden and remarkable change in the results! Here's where things stand as of now...

UPDATE 3:35pm PT: Full video now linked below! Kennedy spoke about how easy it now is to steal an election on an E-Voting Machine ("in just 60 seconds") as based on recent studies by Princeton, NYU's Brennan Center and the non-partisan GAO office.

Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) has now filed a U.S. House version of the Emergency Paper Ballot legislation introduced yesterday by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) in the Senate.

Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) joined the Senate legislation as co-sponsors late last evening.

Additionally, Kerry and Feingold both have now co-sponsored and introduced a new "Sense of the Senate Resolution" calling on States around the country to act immediately to put back-up plans in place to have "Emergency Paper Ballots" at the polling places this November to avoid voters being turned away when voting machines fail to work. Thousands, so far this year, have been turned away in one state primary after another due to machine malfunction or unavailability.

The language in the Holt bill filed in the House late last night is identical to the bill filed by Boxer, except that it notes, explicitly, that the "contigency paper ballots" the Federal government will reimburse states for are to be counted as regular ballots --- not as provisional ballots which often go completely uncounted, and must be vetted first to determine a voter's registration status.

Feingold and Kerry issued a press release today (posted in full at the end of this article) calling on Congress to act immediately in the face of what they describe as "a national disgrace," in reference to voters being turned away at the polling place for lack of voting system on which to vote.

Holt's bill, which can be downloaded here [PDF], differs from the Senate bill by stating that jurisdictions who wish to reimbursed by the Federal government for such contingency paper ballots must treat "each such contingency paper ballot cast by a voter as a regular ballot cast in the election and counts it accordingly, and does not treat it as a provisional ballot."

Kerry and Feingold, who are now co-sponsors of the Boxer/Dodd Senate bill filed yesterday, also issued a non-binding "Sense of the Senate" resolution this morning. Pamela Leavy originally reported the news earlier today at Democratic Daily.

In a press release issued earlier along with that resolution today, Feingold said, "We cannot allow the American people to lose faith in the most fundamental aspect of our democratic system ­the right to vote."

He added, "Some of the problems we saw this year, like voters in Maryland being told to come back later because the machines weren’t working, are simply unacceptable. A back-up plan as simple as having emergency paper ballots on hand is essential to preventing election day disasters."

Kerry, who has been criticized for not taking enough action to ensure that votes were counted accurately, or at all, in Ohio after the 2004 Presidential Election, had even stronger words, calling the lack of action by Congress and the White House on these matters, "a disgrace" and a "national scandal".

"It’s a disgrace that a Congress and an Administration which talks about exporting democracy around the world ignores the challenges of our own democracy right here at home," says Kerry in this morning's news release. "We have seen American citizens disenfranchised in our elections for the simple reason that no effective back up system was in place. That’s a national scandal."

Kerry called for "emergency action" and points to the recent meltdown in Maryland's September 12th primary election, which resulted in the Republican Governor there, calling for a similar measure to scrap the machines, and allow all voters in the state to use paper ballots this November.

"[H]ere we are, 42 days away from another election," Kerry said, "and Congress has again dragged its feet even after we mobilized 35,000 citizens to demand a hearing for our Count Every Vote Act, even after what we saw just this month in Montgomery County [Maryland]. We need emergency action now. That is why I am co-sponsoring the Dodd-Boxer legislation to provide emergency paper ballots and that is why Russ Feingold and I are introducing our resolution today demanding election day back-up plans."

"We have a duty to ensure that no citizen will be denied the right to vote in 2006," Kerry concluded.

At their lowest points of popularity, do you recall anyone who claimed that Presidents Carter and Nixon stole their elections or that they didn’t win fair and square? Did any analysts or activist groups claim massive election fraud in the elections that brought these ultimately very unpopular presidents to office?

How confident are you that George Bush really won the 2004 presidential election? If you are a typical American voter and you have doubts, how did those doubts arise? A mid-August Zogby Poll of 1018 likely voters answered the first of these two very important questions. (The author was a contributing sponsor for the survey.)

How confident are you that George W. Bush really won the 2004 presidential election?

In this segment from yesterday, Kitty Pilgrim reports on Florida and their failure to provide recountable ballots for half of the voters in the state. Congressman Wexler wants to do something about that and he has now taken his case to the US Supreme Court.

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Urbina offers several additional points worth checking out in his Times coverage. Including this quote from Boxer concerning her reasons for not making the paper ballot initiative mandatory, but rather allowing it to remain optional to states and local jurisdictions [emphasis ours]:

"I think Big Brother dictating something to local jurisdictions is a big mistake, because they will balk at it," she said. "What we’re saying here is that you run your own elections, and we are going to help you run it properly. If local officials don’t take advantage of the option to take precautions, then they’re the ones on the line."

...As well, "Brad Friedman, a liberal blogger" is mentioned in the Times article.

So as the good Senator B, doesn't get the idea we were dissing her bill to the NY Times (We weren't! Not by any means!) in the comments attributed to us in the piece, please us allow a clarification.

The statement they used from us, had originally preceded a full direct quote explaining that Election Directors from states like Florida had expressed concern that they might need a Federal mandate in order to take advantage of the this paper ballot legislation. State election code in Florida, we're told, does not have provisions allowing such elections officials to make paper ballots available, even if they wanted to.

In Florida's touch-screen-only counties, for example, which comprise some 50% of Sunshine State voters, even the Provisional Balloting is done electronically on touch-screen systems! Which means, as Leon County, FL Election Director Ion Sancho explained to us this morning, that without a Federal mandate, it's likely that those officials would not be able to take advantage of this legislation...even if it manages to get through the full Congress in the few days left before Congress breaks for their Election Recess.

UPDATE: Ah, proof, I'm not crazy! In this version of the Times article (how many do they release?!) there is this additional quote from yours truly:

"In the case of many states, such as Florida, there is simply nothing in the state code that allows election directors to provide emergency ballot in the event of machine failure," he said.

See? Phew...

Beyond that, given the short time left here, we're delighted to see this legislation move forward! Delighted to see the Times' coverage. And just delighted in general that someone in Washington D.C. is finally recognizing the dangers to democracy that we're facing in the upcoming mid-term election!

Two Senators have introduced a bill in the Senate that will reimburse counties for paper ballots if they are provided along with DRE voting machines in precincts. This bill was begun as an idea from a blogger and shows the power of the blog. / Diebold claims to have solved a design flaw that caused their e-poll book to crash constantly while being used in Maryland's primary. One has to wonder how that fix was made and put on the Maryland machines without ever going through federal certification testing. / Denver Colorado seems to have purchased second-hand Sequoia "card activators" from Chicago. They were used in the failed Chicago primary. The equipment then failed in Denver last month. Good plan and they saved a whole $10,000....

Calls for 'Contingency Paper Ballots' in States, Counties this November to be Paid for by Feds!

Co-Author of HAVA is Co-Sponsor of New Bill Answering Our Call for a 'LET AMERICA VOTE ACT', Makes Paper Ballots Optional to States Rather Than Mandated...But We'll Take it! Sources Say House Bill to Follow Soon!

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced emergency legislation to amend the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) this afternoon to offer funding to states and counties who make 'contingency paper ballots' available to voters to be used at the voter's option instead of electronic voting systems.

The so-called contingency paper ballots are intended to be counted as normal ballots, as opposed to Provisional Ballots which must be vetted first to determine the integrity of the voter's registration. Provisional ballots are frequently counted only several days after Election Day, and often, not at all. The Senate legislation as filed, however, does not spell out the intended difference between "contingency" and "provisional" ballots specifically.

The BRAD BLOG has learned from a source currently working on similar legislation in the House, said to be filed there shortly, that the House version will include such specific language if possible to ensure such contingency ballots are counted as normal ballots on Election Night. Several Capitol Hill sources have confirmed that such legislation is currently in the works. We hope to have more details on the House version later today.

The inclusion of Dodd as a co-sponsor on the Senate legislation is no small coup, as he was one of the original co-sponsors of the HAVA legislation of 2002 which this bill would amend. Until now, he and the other bi-partisan co-sponsors of that original legislation have been reluctant to open HAVA to amendment.

The legislation, filed just after 4pm ET this afternoon, would refund state and county voting jurisdictions that offer paper ballots as an option to voters, and requires such jurisdictions post "in a conspicuous manner at the polling place, a notice stating that contingency paper ballots are available at the polling place and that a voter may request to use such a ballot at the voter's discretion."

Election integrity advocacy groups and citizens alike have been rallying members of both the U.S. House and Senate to pass such legislation since The BRAD BLOG initially called for what we had called, the "LET AMERICA VOTE ACT" last Tuesday. The act we called for would mandate emergency paper ballots at all polling places this November in light of thousands of voters having been sent away without having been able to cast a vote in primary after primary election so far this year when new electronic voting machines either malfunctioned or were otherwise unavailable.

The short Boxer/Dodd bill does not mandate the use of such ballots, but rather offers federal payment to local jurisdictions that choose to make such 'contingency paper ballots' available at either the voter's request or in the event of machine malfunction.

The bill is now being referred to informally as the "Confidence in Vote Act of 2006". It's a simple bill, three pages long in total, and is posted in full at the bottom this article. The final version of the bill to be filed momentarily (it may have already been) may be downloaded here in PDF format.

The bill introduced today is notable in no small part in that it's co-sponsored by Dodd --- one of the original co-sponsors of HAVA along with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the Senate and Reps. Bob Ney (R-OH) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD) in the House. HAVA was the bill which had set in motion the nationwide implementation of electronic voting systems paid for by the federal government. That bill gave states and counties some $3 billion dollars for voting systems "upgrades" around the country, and has led to a panoply of problems at polls, criticism from computer scientists, security experts and non-partisan election integrity organizations.

Dodd, and the other bi-partisan co-sponsors of HAVA, including the now-disgraced lead author Ney (R-OH), have been reluctant up until now to modify the legislation in any way, despite repeated calls from Election Integrity advocates, and a host of bills filed in both the House and Senate which have not been allowed to move forward.

The BRAD BLOG has learned that Boxer and Dodd chose to make the use of "contingency paper ballots" an option to states, rather than a mandate, in hopes that it would make the bill less contentious and easier to pass in the few days left in this legislative session before the election recess.

Both touch-screen DRE's and paper based optical scan systems have spectacularly failed across the country so far this year as well, and contingency plans have been called from both Republicans and Democrats alike to have such contingency plans in place at local jurisdictions should such machines continue to fail this November.

The downside to offering these paper ballots as an option, instead of a mandate, is that some states --- such as Florida --- have provisions in place making it essentially illegal for elections directors to offer such paper ballots at the polling place. For those states, it may well be that only a federal mandate would do the job of ensuring that voters would be able to vote come hell or highwater this November.

The legendary Leon County, FL Election Director Ion Sancho had previously expressed hopes that such a bill would make it "illegal to send a properly registered voter away from the polls without allowing them to cast a vote."

The latest state to have had machine problems in their primary election, resulting in voters being turned away from the polls, or being given Provisional Ballots (which are frequently not counted at all after Election Day) was Maryland. The Republican Governor of Maryland, Bob Ehrlich, called for scrapping the state's Diebold paperless touch-screen voting systems after their September 12th primary, calling on the state to impliment Emergency Paper Balloting this November. Incidents similar to the now-infamous "Maryland Meltdown" have been occuring across the country all year in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Arkansas, West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, and many others.

The Boxer/Dodd legislation cites a recent call from former Republican Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Democratic Governor Richard Celeste to have such "backup and contingency plans that anticipate a wide range of possible failures in their electronic voting systems" this November.

With just 4, or so, legislative days left in this Congress before they break for their Election Recess, it'll be no easy feat to see the bill passed by both the House and Senate before they leave. But given the stakes, and the bi-partisan call across the country for such a measure, we hope the Congress can act with the speed appropriate for a bill so important to, at least, helping to mitigate the train wreck that our democracy may be headed for this November 7th.

In Monday's "Democracy at Risk" segment Kitty discusses the ruling from the judge in Colorado (as broken originally by The BRAD BLOG last Friday) against the state's "abysmal" voting machine certification process. Of course, the Secretary of State is trying to make it a partisan political issue.

Says Dobbs in yesterday's report: "[M]any state governments across the country are finally awakening to the threat that electronic voting machines pose to our upcoming midterm elections --- and our democracy."

Says Pilgrim: "[A] judge found the secretary of state's office had violated the law, saying there were no minimum standards. It failed to meet its statutory requirements for testing. It failed to adopt rules and failed to adequately test the machines...In many cases, the state simply allowed the manufacturers to vouch for the safety of the machines."

Says the plaintiff's attorney in CO: "The deficiencies in the testing was an utter lack of competence, and an utter lack any scientific method, and utter lack of any recordkeeping."

Says the Secretary of State: "Colorado voters should not be concerned about the security of the November election...I ask voters to ignore the political rhetoric by a few seeking to destroy that confidence in the election."

The text-transcript of tonight's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

MicroVote seems to be in trouble in Indiana again. They have still not settled with the state on violations from the primary earlier this year that could bring fines of $300,000 per incident. Now they have admitted disabling the straight-party feature on their Infinity machines because of a software error and they told no one in the state about the action. They are scrambling to fix the software and get the fix reinstalled. ...

Barbara Burt, the Vice-President and Director of Election Reform at the non-partisan Common Cause, has posted a statement this morning on the organization's blog in support of the 'LET AMERICA VOTE ACT' (Emergency Paper Ballot legislation) that we proposed last week as an emergency measure that Congress could pass in their few legislative days left before the election recess.

The idea is to ensure that registered voters who bother to show up to the polls this November could at least cast their vote --- even if the voting machines are malfunctioning or unavailable, as has been the case in primary after primary election so far this year.

The measure should make it illegal to turn away a properly registered voter without allowing them to cast a vote. Giving them a Provisional Ballot is not an alternative, since those ballots are often not counted at all.

This is an initiative that would ensure that every precinct stock paper ballots for use in an emergency or, possibly, in case voters demand to vote on paper. It would be ideal to get this passed through Congress before the election, but Congress is leaving Washington at the end of this week. So chances of passage are slim (although they are capable of fast action on ocassion).

She also reports that the legendary Leon County, FL election director, Ion Sancho, "one of the voices of reason in the world of election officials...said that it should be illegal for a polling place to turn away any eligible voters without allowing them the opportunity to vote."

As of this morning, we're hearing a number of hopeful reports about a number of legislators on Capitol Hill who are considering bringing this legislation forward soon. It would be similar to the emergency measure called for by Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich in Maryland recently, after his state's primary election was an utter disaster in the face of voting machines that couldn't be started up until hours after the polls had already opened.

The rudimentary site (okay, it's not created by fifth graders, it just looks, works and acts that way) includes doctored photos and videos of Curtis, and a smear blog to go with it. Though the main "Crazy Clint Curtis" website indicates that it's "Paid for by Tom Feeney," the blog itself that it links to --- accessible via CrazyClintCurtisBlog.blogspot.com --- has no indication of who it's paid for. If that blog site is created and/or run by a paid member of Feeney's campaign staff or uses it's vast resources (Feeney has reportedly spent the better part of $1 million for this brilliant smear campaign,) it would seem that Feeney is in violation of FEC campaign laws which require a "Paid for by Tom Feeney" notation somewhere on the blog.

Curtis' own website also includes a link to a blog, but as far as we know, it is maintained by a private unpaid individual.

The good news is that those with a free blogger.com registration are allowed to post comments to Feeney's smear blog in reply to the Congressman's silliness! At least as of now. So feel free to give them regards from The BRAD BLOG and let them know where individuals concerned about things such as clean elections, clean officials, clean government contracts, congressmen who take trips from foreign-agents and Jack Abramoff, and who work with companies involved with convicted Chinese spies, can get grown-up information on the Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney story if they are interested.

Curtis has made claims concerning Feeney's involvement as registered lobbyist and general counsel for a Florida software firm that has now been shown to have harbored and petioned for an illegal Chinese alien (who later pled guilty to charges related to sending Hellfire anti-tank missile chips to Communist China) and overbilled the state of Florida by hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has also alleged that Feeney asked the company, in a meeting at which Curtis was present, to create vote-rigging software when they both worked for the firm. Curtis' claims have been made to Florida and Federal officials, as well as in a sworn affidavit and video-taped sworn testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

As well, he has passed a lie-detector test in regard to the claim. So far, Feeney has refused to take such a test, or to debate Curtis face to face despite challenges from the Curtis campaign to do either. Feeney still refuses, as recently as this Tampa Bay Scene cover story published last Thursday, to answer directly to any of the allegations (most of them proven through independent government documents and investigations) that Curtis has made in regard to Feeney.

For his part, Feeney has either refused to discuss the matter, or otherwise claimed he's had nothing to do with the YEI firm since leaving them to go to Congress in 2002. That, even while Feeney's campaign headquarters remains in the YEI building, the owners of the company continue to be amongst his top financial supporters, and even hosted a party for him in 2003 (with undoctored photos)...

Bill Stone of the Tampa Bay Scene writes a devasting and detailed cover story in this week's issue, on the allegations of computer programmer Clint Curtis that Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) asked him to create vote-rigging software when they both worked for the same firm in Oviedo, Florida back in 2000.

Stone's report covers much of the ground we've detailed extensively at BRAD BLOG over the past two years since we first broke the story in December of 2004. Nonetheless, he brings a great deal of that reporting together in one easy-to-read article, and also brings us up to date on the latest shenanigans of Feeney, who finds himself facing Curtis this year, mano-a-mano, in the election for the U.S. House in Florida's 24th Congressional district.

Hardcore readers of The BRAD BLOG will be familiar with much of the story. Indeed, Stone credits us with a great deal of his sourcing, as we spoke to him for several hours at length during our recent summer travels around the country. His article, however, includes new details to chew on.

In particular, Stone hits on a fresh point or two in regard to the death of Raymond Lemme, the investigator from the Florida Inspector General's office --- the first official that Curtis had informed of his allegations against Feeney.

As well, Feeney's camp now has a new slur word they're shamelessly attempting --- without evidence, as usual --- to use to smear Curtis...

From an article on the Colorado lawsuit; "Whenever you hear an assertion from an election official of why you should trust their machines," [Expert witness Dan] Wallach said, "inevitably it boils down to 'because they are federally certified."' The reliance on federal testing for computer vulnerabilities was called into question during the case. "The evidence is that there were pretty significant areas at the federal level where such testing simply wasn't done," Judge Manzanares said in his ruling. / Why has Sequoia misled in a recent press release concerning their products and the Brennan Center Report? ...

In addition to The New York Times'article in Sunday editions today headlined "Officials Wary of Electronic Voting Machines" (we covered that report yesterday), the Times had another piece, buried in the Business Section of Saturday's edition headlined "The Big Gamble on Electronic Voting."

Other than still referring to the machine used in the Princeton Report --- which showed a Diebold touch-screen system could be hacked with an undetectable vote-flipping virus in a minute's time, which could then spread itself to every machine in the system --- as coming from a mysterious "third party", it is a very good article which I highly recommend.

(For the record, I told everyone where the machine came from --- VelvetRevolution.us was given the machine by a source of mine --- when I broke the story originally both here, and at Salon. Not sure why AP, WaPo, NYTimes et al has such trouble figuring it out. Guess they don't use Google.)

Randall Stross' Times piece is very smart. It includes his efforts to press Diebold as to why they won't supply the latest and greatest touch-screen machine to Princeton to test. Since Diebold claimed in their silly, disingenuous reply to the Princeton Report that the Diebold AccuVote model used in the testing was "two generations old" and "to our knowledge, is not used anywhere in the country," one would think Diebold would be more than happy to supply their newest machine for similar security testing. Congrats to Stross for making that point abundantly clear!

Diebold's response about the "two generations old" system is stuff and nonsense, and in the article Diebold spokeshole Mark Radke was extraordinary.

Radke refused Stross' encouragement to supply such a machine to either Princeton or even the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC). That refusal, and the reasons for it, underscore the load of crap that Diebold is still trying to sell to an unsuspecting public and media.

Radke claims, in the piece, that sharing such machines with computer scientists, or even the EAC is "analogous to launching a nuclear missile" and Diebold must restrict "access to the buttons."

Funny reply from a company who sent these machines out like candy in their early development, with almost no inventory control whatsoever (one of the reasons why I was even able to get the machine to Princeton!). Also a funny reply from a company that has failed to warn their customers about the safe use of these machines, by not telling them about the dangers of sending these machines home with poll workers on overnight "sleepovers" for days and weeks prior to an election. Such "sleepovers" sullied the integrity of San Diego's recent U.S. House Special election in June, and the practice will be carried out again across the country this November.

Diebold, apparently, is just fine with that.

The Diebold company and their dishonest business practices in these regards are an irresponsible menance to democracy, our American Values, and our way of life. They, and several of the other voting machines companies, have succeeded in undermining the very core of our Republic. The media and both major political parties are also guilty for allowing them to do so.